dmd3x Posted January 11, 2003 Share Posted January 11, 2003 A friend and I are going to demonstrate Linux on a few different machines to the computer administrator, and computer teachers, at our school. We are looking for distros that fit this criteria: 1 bootable installation disk (easy installation, bootable CD-ROM). KDE, Gnome, and at least one other WM internet/ethernet support office applications (word processor, spreadsheet) internet applications (Mozilla is a must) multimedia applications (XMMS is a must) The computers vary from 233MHz to 450MHz (Mostly PIIs) some have only 64MB of RAM but most have 128MB. The hard drives are from 1.5GB to 7GB. The video cards are mostly 8MB and some are 16MB. We want to impress, so anything that is "kinda slow" or "a little laggy" wont do. Anyone have suggestions? Please be as informative as possible when responding. Thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[idkfa] Posted January 11, 2003 Share Posted January 11, 2003 Knoppix will fit your needs Edit: afaik it won't run on the machines with 64mb ram (if there's no fat-partition), but on the ones with 128mb it will Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cody Posted January 11, 2003 Share Posted January 11, 2003 what distros have u used b4? i had SuSE 7.3 on a 400mhz 192mg ram, laptop and it ran fine, got it to network and it has a few windows managers but it is 3 cds Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the evn show Posted January 11, 2003 Share Posted January 11, 2003 Gentoo Linux will be the fastest distribution out there. It will compile and run on machines with only 64mb ram + 64mb swap, but as you can imagine compiling things will take forever: once that's done the applications will be plenty-fast (as good as you're going to get anyway). The install is only 1 CD however it does not include X, KDE/Gnome/etc on it: You'll have to add them yourself after installing, fortunatly that task is as simple as # su root password: #emerge kde #emerge gnome #emerge xmms #emerge mozilla Then you just have to wait for that stuff to download and compile. An installation of Gentoo + newest kernel, and KDE (stage 1) takes about 30 hours on my old Thunderbird 900 @ 1.1 GHz with 1gb of RAM and a 7,200 RPM HDD with 8 MB cache. On the machines you have it would probably be closer to a week: but you earn that time back because your applications will be fully optomized for each machine. You can use a stage3 install which has much of the compile work already done - it could make the install be as fast as only a couple hours but the distro won't run as fast. The last time I installed Slackware (7.x) it was only a single disk, ran well on low-ram machines (96mb) and was only a single install disk. The major downfall to these distributions is that the install isn't as easy as Redhat for example. You will have to configure X11 yourself and you will be required to edit some text files to get network and sound functioning. If you're not experienced in linux then something else mightbe a better choice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[idkfa] Posted January 11, 2003 Share Posted January 11, 2003 We are looking for distros that fit this criteria:1 bootable installation disk (easy installation, bootable CD-ROM). i've never tried the live cds, but gentoo isn't too easy for beginners ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prasanth Posted January 11, 2003 Share Posted January 11, 2003 Gentoo will take years to compile on a old system We want to impress, so anything that is "kinda slow" or "a little laggy" wont do X server+KDE or GNOME = pure bloat If you had asked me. The sys has only 64 MB ram so it will be super slow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmd3x Posted January 12, 2003 Author Share Posted January 12, 2003 Knoppix will fit your needsEdit: afaik it won't run on the machines with 64mb ram (if there's no fat-partition), but on the ones with 128mb it will Sorry if I was not specific enough, but I meant that we would like to be able to install Linux onto the hard drive from a bootable installation cd-rom. The Mandrake installation disks boot from a CD-ROM, the only problem is: we dont want to use Mandrake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmd3x Posted January 12, 2003 Author Share Posted January 12, 2003 Gentoo sounds pretty cool, but way too much time is involved in the installation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zivan56 Posted January 12, 2003 Share Posted January 12, 2003 Try Debian Linux Just choose all the stuff you need during setup. It takes 2 - 3 mins to boot to the graphical login screen on my Am486dx 100Mhz with 16mb of ram. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[idkfa] Posted January 12, 2003 Share Posted January 12, 2003 Knoppix will fit your needsEdit: afaik it won't run on the machines with 64mb ram (if there's no fat-partition), but on the ones with 128mb it will Sorry if I was not specific enough, but I meant that we would like to be able to install Linux onto the hard drive from a bootable installation cd-rom. The Mandrake installation disks boot from a CD-ROM, the only problem is: we dont want to use Mandrake. knoppix comes with a script to install it on the HD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mezz Posted January 12, 2003 Share Posted January 12, 2003 School has no time; therefore, Gentoo isn't answer. Go for Redhat, Mandrake, Lyroic (sp?) or few other desktop Linux distros. Check at www.distrowatch.com .. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmd3x Posted January 12, 2003 Author Share Posted January 12, 2003 knoppix comes with a script to install it on the HD It does? How does it work? Anyway - cool, I will check it out. I will also look into Debian and RedHat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[idkfa] Posted January 12, 2003 Share Posted January 12, 2003 knoppix comes with a script to install it on the HD It does? How does it work? Anyway - cool, I will check it out. after it's bootet, just type "/usr/local/bin/knx-hdinstall" (you might need a bit linux experience for that, but i don't know since i've never done this myself) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmd3x Posted January 12, 2003 Author Share Posted January 12, 2003 knoppix comes with a script to install it on the HD It does? How does it work? Anyway - cool, I will check it out. after it's bootet, just type "/usr/local/bin/knx-hdinstall" (you might need a bit linux experience for that, but i don't know since i've never done this myself) Thanks. I will give it a try. (I still gotta download Knoppix though). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MulletRobZ Posted January 13, 2003 Share Posted January 13, 2003 Mandrake would be good for the schools. This could let the students customize the desktops, but not the root nor software configurations. That would be so cool. Just block all pop-ups in both Konqueror and Mozilla and we'd be all set. Also, KOffice reads WordPerfect and Word, so that's no problem. OpenOffice or StarOffice is still recommended as a MS Office substitute. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neowin_hipster Posted January 13, 2003 Share Posted January 13, 2003 Gentoo can emerge so that binaries are made for installation on multipile machines, its a hell of a lot faster than ANYTHING. KDE is actually fast ;) GRP are pre-built/custom mozilla, xfree, gimp, openoffice, kde, and gnome. Those are on the live cd. The kernel is preemtible (something from the 2.5 branch) where even under extremely heavy load, all applications remain amazingly responsive. Don't use debian. It's totally old and outdated by default. As for the file systems XFS and reiserfs are the way to go. Mandrake now has the 1cd option, and comes with everything you would need. Doesn't take long to install at all. Redhat 8.0 has 3 cd's but you could get away with 1 if you don't choose the developper options (i think) Suse is another great distro. I'm very impressed by it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zivan56 Posted January 13, 2003 Share Posted January 13, 2003 Don't use debian. It's totally old and outdated by default. Its not old, the newest release was last month. The reason it does not have new experemental stuff is becuase its the only stable distro. Security updates are on in a matter of hours and are idiotically simple to install. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mezz Posted January 13, 2003 Share Posted January 13, 2003 Don't use debian. It's totally old and outdated by default. Its not old, the newest release was last month. The reason it does not have new experemental stuff is becuase its the only stable distro. Security updates are on in a matter of hours and are idiotically simple to install. Sorry, I agree with him. Debian is slow as snail to get things update. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
threetonesun Posted January 13, 2003 Share Posted January 13, 2003 Red Hat. I just installed it, simple as cake and has everything your looking for straight off the install. Not sure about running it off the HD though :huh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prasanth Posted January 13, 2003 Share Posted January 13, 2003 Don't use debian. It's totally old and outdated by default. Its not old, the newest release was last month. The reason it does not have new experemental stuff is becuase its the only stable distro. Security updates are on in a matter of hours and are idiotically simple to install. Sorry, I agree with him. Debian is slow as snail to get things update. Its because they are aiming at stability and don't include the latest pre-alpha :rolleyes: packages with their distro. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimf43 Posted January 13, 2003 Share Posted January 13, 2003 A friend and I are going to demonstrate Linux on a few different machines to the computer administrator, and computer teachers, at our school.We are looking for distros that fit this criteria: 1 bootable installation disk (easy installation, bootable CD-ROM). KDE, Gnome, and at least one other WM internet/ethernet support office applications (word processor, spreadsheet) internet applications (Mozilla is a must) multimedia applications (XMMS is a must) The computers vary from 233MHz to 450MHz (Mostly PIIs) some have only 64MB of RAM but most have 128MB. The hard drives are from 1.5GB to 7GB. The video cards are mostly 8MB and some are 16MB. We want to impress, so anything that is "kinda slow" or "a little laggy" wont do. Anyone have suggestions? Please be as informative as possible when responding. Thank you! Mandrake, Red Hat, or, SuSE are really the only choices for that kind of thing. I've tried them all and Mandrake really is the easiest to configure :yes: All of these have the programs you want, but, while I think that any of them will run on your minimum configuration, don't expect that a 233MHz with 64MB will be much of a speed demon :x Unless you want to run a command line OS, that isn't going to change no matter what distro you choose. Your school must recognize that a ram increase wouldn't be inapproiate for some of the slower machines ;) On the other hand the video cards and the HDs shouldn't be an issue since these won't be used for gaming :laugh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mezz Posted January 13, 2003 Share Posted January 13, 2003 Don't use debian. It's totally old and outdated by default. Its not old, the newest release was last month. The reason it does not have new experemental stuff is becuase its the only stable distro. Security updates are on in a matter of hours and are idiotically simple to install. Sorry, I agree with him. Debian is slow as snail to get things update. Its because they are aiming at stability and don't include the latest pre-alpha :rolleyes: packages with their distro. Doesn't matter, even thought products are very stable to use and they are still slow to update compare to other Linux distros and BSD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zivan56 Posted January 13, 2003 Share Posted January 13, 2003 Don't use debian. It's totally old and outdated by default. Its not old, the newest release was last month. The reason it does not have new experemental stuff is becuase its the only stable distro. Security updates are on in a matter of hours and are idiotically simple to install. Sorry, I agree with him. Debian is slow as snail to get things update. Its because they are aiming at stability and don't include the latest pre-alpha :rolleyes: packages with their distro. Doesn't matter, even thought products are very stable to use and they are still slow to update compare to other Linux distros and BSD. Have you ever used Debian? Security problems are fixed in a matter of hours. If you mean applications its because its aimed at stability, and the version numbers usually stay the same when they appy fixes to the sources (i.e php 4.1.2) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[idkfa] Posted January 13, 2003 Share Posted January 13, 2003 Don't use debian. It's totally old and outdated by default. Its not old, the newest release was last month. The reason it does not have new experemental stuff is becuase its the only stable distro. Security updates are on in a matter of hours and are idiotically simple to install. Sorry, I agree with him. Debian is slow as snail to get things update. Its because they are aiming at stability and don't include the latest pre-alpha :rolleyes: packages with their distro. Doesn't matter, even thought products are very stable to use and they are still slow to update compare to other Linux distros and BSD. Have you ever used Debian? Security problems are fixed in a matter of hours. If you mean applications its because its aimed at stability, and the version numbers usually stay the same when they appy fixes to the sources (i.e php 4.1.2) debian is 'old' because they want stable software in their stable tree, AND because there is debian for 12 (if i remember correctly :rolleyes: ) different platforms. it just needs time until every program is fixed/ported/recompiled for that other platforms than x86. for example, take their move to gcc 3.2: they waited until it was ready for m68k's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JzL Posted January 13, 2003 Share Posted January 13, 2003 Mandrake 9.0 (9.1 in beta right now) is your best bet. Setup is as easy was windowsxp. Plus meets all the criteria that you listed. THIS IS MY Favorite OS by far! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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